Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Bits and Pieces

Motherhood is seriously cramping my blogging style. This post may be a little meandering, but I’m trying to capture the things we’ve left off the blog due to just being too busy.

On meeting Micah for the first time: He was brought into the room before we had completed signing our paperwork. Someone called “Wei Jian Tong,” and entered carrying the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. I went to him and the nanny said “Mama?” I said, “yes, mama.” And he was put into my arms. He looked really confused. Crick said to be sure to remember how I felt at that moment. What I really felt was relieved. He didn’t shriek, he didn’t cry. I was concerned that he would be scared of us and it would be so hard, but it wasn’t. So the honest answer is “relief.”

Then our guide, Wendy, told me I had to sign the paperwork. Ah, I don’t want to let go of my baby. But Bruce stood up to take him from me. Tong Tong took one look at Bruce and said, “Baba!” He thrust out his arms for Bruce to take him from me. The look on Bruce’s face was almost as beautiful as our boy.

I sat down to sign all of the forms. I had to sign my name eight times. I think each signature looked different as my hand shook and my mind ran to the little boy three feet away from me. Finally that was done and I was able to turn my attention to him. The nanny spoke to him in Mandarin, pointing to me and Bruce and saying “mama, baba.” Tong Tong joined right in pointing to each of us and calling us mama and baba. Whoa! That was cool.

Bruce handed him to me and he came willingly. Someone handed me a bag. In it was a half-eaten muffin, an open bag of something that looked like cheese puffs, along with the camera and the photo album that we sent in our care package. I pulled it out and he cried, “mama, baba.” As we paged through the photo album, he pointed and called each person by name. Our heartfelt thanks must go to the foster mother who prepared him so well for this moment. I have to say that besides mama and baba, his favorite pictures were of nai nai and ye ye (Grandma and Grandpa Klika) and of his uncle Kurt, who he seems to call “lu lu.” I can’t remember if that’s the word for uncle or if Kurt just looks like a LuLu. LOL!

Then Wendy reminded me that we had toys to play with. First we tried the toy cell phone. Not so interested. We got out Leap – who sings the alphabet song. Oh my. His whole face lit up. He learned that he could make Leap sing the alphabet song by pressing his tummy. So he pressed. Over and over. I guess I’ll know my ABC’s too. Heehee.

I looked in the bag further and found the toy phone we sent. Similar to the one I brought, but striped like a candy cane. Hey, I bought it at Christmas time, what do you expect? That was a hit.